The Polaris Effect Ch. 06

Chapter Six- Finding Joy in Melancholy

All week Alicia knew there was something wrong with Jeremy. He was more withdrawn than usual and none of her silly pranks or jokes that usually kept their office atmosphere jovial had any affect on him. She left it alone for as long as she possibly could. Friday morning she suggested that they head out to their favorite deli for their classic "Ruben" sandwiches at lunchtime.

Jeremy still looked miserable, but capitulated out of sheer exhaustion from Alicia's demands. They left the building at noon and strolled through the damp streets. It had been raining when they came to work that morning, but when they reached the street at noon, they were happy to discover there was no need to bundle up and fight another Seattle downpour. Alicia slipped her hand into Jeremy's, looked up to him, and caught his eye.

"Tell me what's wrong?" Alicia had always been Jeremy's one true confidant in Seattle. Sure, he had a ton of friends. People in the scene at the clubs and the bars, but they were mere acquaintances to him. There was no one he trusted with his secrets, but her.

"I don't know if I can." His eyes were sunken and bloodshot from all of the constant torment he had subjected himself to all week.

She looked at him incredulously, "Bullshit." She glared back at him. "This has to stop, Jeremy, you look like a freakin' zombie." Her rough and tumble upbringing reared its ugly head at times like these. She wasn't about to sit by while he wasted away in front of her. "Let's get our lunch and go sit in the park, you can tell me in private, okay?" His head nodded and he wondered how much longer he was going to be able to keep it all bottled up anyway.

They made their way through the lunchtime crowds of the renowned deli and walked in silence to a gazebo-covered area of the park down the block from their office building. They ate their sandwiches after finding a secluded spot and finally he sighed and looked out across the sea of people bustling about on their individual lunchtime quests.

"Look hon, you need to get whatever is bothering you off your chest. You know that I won't judge you and I won't bug you about it after today if you don't want me to, but you are going to tell me what's wrong or I might be forced to hurt you." Her smile glimmered in the sunlight, still streaming through a few scattered clouds.

Her attempt at levity broke through his armor of guilt, sadness and remorse. Alicia was almost a whole foot shorter than Jeremy and at times, reminded him of Mighty Mouse from the Saturday morning cartoons. His smile was weak, but it was the chink in his armor that she had been searching for.

He wrung his hands together, more out of frustration than the cold chill in the early November air. He fought to find an easy and succinct way to explain the turbulence that he had kept buried in his soul for the last ten years.

"Do you remember me telling you about my friend Archer from high school?" She nodded, purposely keeping quiet so that he would get this all out of his system at last.

"We were together for a long time, Lisha. He was the first person I ever loved. Even though we were really young, it was a very mature kind of love. I think that sometimes when you feel different from everyone else around you, you sort of protect yourself by binding to the most stable thing you can find. For me, that thing was Archer." Her understanding eyes goaded him to continue. "Yeah, we did kid stuff, played games, went to movies, all the things that regular teenage boys who are best friends do, but we were lovers too."

"It took me a whole year after I met him to finally tell him that I was in love with him. After the walls broke down, it was like a flood of emotions and feelings escaped from my heart and soul. I had battled so much with myself out of constant fear of rejection that when he told me he loved me too, I just couldn't conceive of ever loving anyone else."

She watched him carefully and kept very still waiting for him to continue.

"It was the happiest time in my life. Then after we graduated, I started meeting new people. That summer I had a job in a little restaurant in town and when people that I didn't know started asking if I had a girlfriend, I was suddenly defensive. Arch and I had been "out" at school. All of our close friends were supportive and we never really took much flack about our relationship. We were lucky, I know. But then, some of the people I worked with were older and I worried what they would think of me if they found out I was gay. It was the first time I was really ever embarrassed about loving another boy. I would see the other guys who bussed tables and so forth, coming in with their girlfriends. The owner was a great guy with a really nice wife and two small girls. Confusion started to creep into my head on a daily basis."

"I kept asking myself, hadn't I always pictured myself with a family, didn't I want to be a daddy? Did I want to hide my love for Archer from the world, if not then why couldn't I tell these people about him? I thought if Archer and I stayed together we would never be able to have kids. I was too young to see that there were options for that as well. The constant confusion was starting to play on my self-worth. This was all wrong, I kept telling myself. I was betraying Arch and myself by being so confused. So I left. I told him that I couldn't be with him anymore, that we needed to grow up and find our own futures and that I thought he would be better off without me... I figured I would enroll in college, meet a nice girl, settle down, get married, have kids and everything would work itself out."

He had managed to keep his composure throughout most of the story, but now he was beginning to feel overwhelmed.

"When I got up here and enrolled in school, I tried to go out on a couple of dates with some nice girls I met. There was even a girl named Wendy Crenshaw that I dated for almost a month. But as I'm sure you can figure out, once we got past the niceties, and she wanted to take the relationship to the next level, I just couldn't bring myself to do anything with her. I would just lay there and dream of Archer."

A sob escaped his lips and she shuttered, feeling the pain she knew had been haunting him for years.

"I wanted to go back...." He sniffled, "I wanted to tell him that loved him, only him...but, ...I ...I was too scared. And I was embarrassed. I made a mistake Lisha, I loved him, I've always loved him and I don't think anything will ever be right again if I don't find a way to tell him how sorry I am."

She leaned toward him and wrapped her arms around him tenderly. Alicia never felt very maternal, but at that moment, she could understand what the instinct meant. Jeremy was her best friend and she never wanted anything to hurt him. It broke her heart to see him like this and she desperately wanted to do something to help him get through the pain he was experiencing.

"Jem, sweetie... listen, maybe there's a way to fix this? Have you tried to find him yet?"

He shook his head and mumbled a soft "no."

"Sweetheart, I think that maybe you had better think about taking some time off. You have plenty of vacation tucked away and you never call in sick. Take some time Jeremy, find him and tell him how you feel. You'll never know unless you try."

Jeremy lifted his head slowly from her shoulder and wiped the tears from his eyes. "I'm so scared of what he'll say though. What if he curses me and sends me away? What if he has someone else in his life? I don't think I could live with that?"

"Well you certainly cannot go on living like this. At least if you try, then you'll know for sure. If it turns out that he does have someone else or that he doesn't want to be with you, that's a chance you'll have to take. Then at least you can grieve once and for all and start over. That may seem harsh honey, but that's just how life works." She kissed his cheek softly.

"Jeremy Sandler, you owe yourself the truth and in finding the truth you may also find the love you have been so desperately yearning for all these years."

He thought for a moment about what she had said. "Will you tell Helsby for me that I'm sick and I'm going home for the day?" Jeremy stifled another sob and Alicia handed him a tissue from her bag.

"Sure sweetie." She stroked his back and hugged him again fiercely. "You go home and get some rest and then call the firm this afternoon and tell them you need to take some time off. You know I'll handle everything while you're gone. If I get desperate, I'll call Zeek over at Monahan's and contract him for a while. He's a great kid and he's smart as a whip, I know I can get him up to speed in no time."

They walked to the edge of the park and she reassured him that she would cover everything at work for as long as he needed. He kissed her quickly on the forehead and headed back for the parking garage. She watched him walk away and waved as he turned and glanced back at her over his shoulder. He merely nodded his head in acknowledgment and hurried for his car.

***

He left the next morning for Ashland. He didn't call his folks and tell them that he was coming. He simply packed one bag with necessities, got in his car and pulled away from the townhouse, never looking back. As the highway passed on either side of him, he reached into the side compartment of the Honda and pulled out his CD case. He slipped the first disk into the player and let the music pull him into the past. He turned up the volume and the bass reverberated in his soul. This was their music, the rebellious anthems that gave them the courage to face their parents and their classmates as a couple. Springsteen was like the opera, you either loved his music more than anything on the face of the Earth or you couldn't stand it and nothing anyone said could ever change your mind.

The songs rolled out of the speakers in chronological order, Thunder Road, Growin' Up and Nebraska, but then came the one that he always skipped past, no matter how nostalgic he was feeling; their song. Bruce screamed his patented countdown in the microphone, ONE, TWO....

The melody chimed in on the piano and Clarence's sax bellowed its deep and ultimately sexy notes. Jeremy heard the words, but didn't let himself react to them, until the chorus stared. The Boss belted out the words, using all of the strength and power in his lungs...

Two hearts are better than one,

Two hearts will get the job done;

Oh, Oh...Two hearts are better than one.

He sang the words aloud and although memories of Archer sped through his brain at a furious pace, he never lost control. He replaced the genders of the people in the song, just as they had thirteen years ago to make them match their relationship. As the final guitar lick faded and the crowd chanted a long continuous B...R...U...C...E, he allowed all of the wonderful feelings of completeness and fulfillment from the past to consume him. His heart swelled with love for the man he had spent the last ten years trying so hard to block out. He felt warm inside and a uniquely happy smile settled on his face. He popped the CD out and replaced it with the second one of series, listening and remembering.

***

The trip to Ashland from Seattle usually took him about eight hours. He took the most direct route he could and after six-and-a-half hours, he signaled and pulled off the highway. The dense, lush foliage; spawned from eighty-some inches of rain each year, spilled over the split rail fences that lined the rural county road on the way to his parent's place outside of the city limits of Ashland. He hadn't been back here in the ten years. His family had heard every excuse in the book about why he couldn't make it home, but in his heart there was only one reason he couldn't come back...too many memories.

As he rounded the last bend before the line of oaks leading to his parent's house, his mind recalled the hours of fun he and Arch had spent riding these paths on their bikes. He could still see the mane of golden red hair blowing in the breeze as Archer would whoosh up behind him and Jeremy would let up and let him pass. His smile was still plastered to his lips when he turned into the gravel driveway.

Hearing the crunch of a vehicle on their drive, Amy Sandler looked up from her Birds and Blooms and glanced out the kitchen window to see who her visitor was. Her friend Marion Randall had mentioned that she might bring out a batch of her latest apple butter, but Amy didn't see the weather-beaten panels of Marion's station wagon in front of the house. There was a man behind the wheel of a beige Honda. She strained her aging eyes to look closer and grabbed for her glasses, which usually hung from a chain around her neck. With no luck, she searched the plastic covering on the kitchen table for them.

By the time Jeremy had extricated himself from his mid-size Accord and strolled to the back door, he peered in with his hand over his eyes to find his mother sprinting to the door, fumbling to right her glasses on her face. The look of shock on her face when the recognition hit her was priceless. Jeremy wished he had a camera with him.

She opened the door and flung herself into his arms. "Jemmie, my God... what are you doing here?"

He hugged her tight and swung her around off her feet. Amy was a small woman and Jeremy could have easily carried her on a five-mile hike. "Hi Mama, I'm so glad to finally be here."

Jeremy set her down on the flowery peach and green linoleum and found her face covered in trails of tears. She quickly brushed them away with the back of her hand and gazed at her son in utmost horror. He was practically emaciated. His eyes were sunken and bloodshot, he weighed practically nothing and his skin was the color of paste. Of course, she had been known to exaggerate a bit here and there when it came to the welfare of her children, but Jeremy looked bloody awful.

"Honey, what's wrong? Are you sick?" The fearful reality of those three dreaded letters skirted her brain, but she refused to let them settled.

"No mom, I'm not sick." Her chest let out a gasp and she started crying again.

"Jem, baby, why didn't you call and let us know you were coming?"


Jeremy moved his mother from the doorway and closed the whitewashed barn door. After he had convinced her that the world wasn't coming to an end in the next few seconds, he sat down at the familiar oblong kitchenette set where he had eaten his meals for nineteen years. Amy continued to fuss over him getting out a plates of cookies and pouring them both some lemonade. Jeremy drank the offered glass with haste and finished it in record time.

"Aaaah," he sighed as he finished. His mother sat attentively across the table from him with her chin resting on her folded hands. He knew the look, it said...spill it mister and don't leave anything out because I'll find out somehow.

Jeremy reached across the table, gathered his mother's hands in his, and squeezed. They sat there for a few moments and just stared at each other. The courage appeared out of nowhere really, but Jeremy didn't care how he got this done, he just had to do it and as fast as he could.

"You were right mom. I wasn't really happy in Seattle. I kept telling myself I was and I kept trying to pretend that I had something there worth staying for, but this last week I've been having a hard time even getting up in the morning and going to work. Yesterday my friend Alicia was able to convince me to take some time off and figure out what was wrong with me. Well, maybe not figure it out, but maybe try to fix it."

There was a long pause and Amy looked deep into her son's eyes and saw the sparkle that had fled from them so long ago.

Brazenly she spoke, "I don't know where he is sweetheart, but we'll find him somehow, I can just feel it."

The dam broke. He laid his head on the table and wept. She rounded the corner of the table and in no time enveloped her baby boy in her arms. She didn't care that he was thirty years old now or that he was almost a foot taller than she was. He was her son and he needed her. He sobbed violently and she stroked his hair and whispered little reassurances to him.

Through the torrent of tears, he sputtered out the things he had been holding back from her and from himself for the last ten years. "I don't know how I could have ever let him go mom? I love him so much. I just can't live without him anymore. Nothing works, nothing is right. He was my life, my love. There can't be anybody else that was made just for me."

At that moment, as Amy Sandler listened to her son's immense grief, she felt more loved and more cherished than at any other time in her life. She knew that it was a huge admission for Jeremy to trust her with his secrets and she silently vowed to herself to do whatever it took to help him find his long lost love. Slowly, Jeremy's crying subsided as she knelt in front of him. The shoulder of her blouse was soaked through and her nose was stuffed-up from crying herself. She got up and went for the box of tissues on the piano in the family room. She plopped it in the middle of the table, pulling one out and resumed her seat in the chair across from him. She mopped her face with the thing, just as he did but let him settle some before she said anything.

"Honey, don't blame yourself completely. You and Archer were a couple. Two people sharing a lot of love and responsibility for something that was very complicated at the time. You were so young to have so much of a burden on you. There was no one around to guide you or give you advice about what to do if you two had problems. You didn't really have anyone that was an example of how a gay couple makes things work. You only had dad and me and I know that we certainly weren't a model couple at the time. Shoot, he spent so much time at work back then that I had forgotten I was even married to him. It's only been these past few years that we have gotten to know each other again and fallen back in love."

"Really mom, I had no idea." Jeremy slowly got up from the table and opened the refrigerator to get another glass of lemonade. As he returned it to the frig and sat back down with his glass, a sudden feeling of peace and calm filtered over him. The smell of the kitchen, the taste of the lemonade, his mother's warm smile and tenderhearted words; all of this gave him a sensation of love and comfort. He was sure he was finally taking the right path.

"Where do you think we should start?" Jeremy asked his mother, still sniffling a bit.

"Well, I suspect with Bill and Cathy. But I don't know if they will be able to help us?" Amy dreaded telling Jeremy about the awful fight Archer had with his parents after Jeremy left for Seattle.

"Why mom?" Jeremy couldn't imagine why Archer's parents wouldn't know where he was. He was terrified all of a sudden that his mom had been keeping something from him. "He's okay isn't he? Do you know where his parents are?"


His brain was turning in fifty different directions at once and every negative emotion he had been feeling, fear, dread, remorse, guilt was suddenly balling up inside of him.

"Sweetheart, calm down. As far as I know, Archer is fine, but there are some things that you are going to have to hear now that are going to be difficult. Maybe we should think about tabling this discussion for now and letting you rest a little bit." She saw the grimace on his face and knew that he wanted to go on, but in her world, mother always knew best. "I bet you drove straight through didn't you?" She rolled her eyes at him.

"Mmmm..... Yep." Jeremy's eyes were so tired and sore that he could barely keep them open, but he needed to know what had happened with Arch in order to help him find his lover again.